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Instructional Design Certificate Program

What is an instructional design courses certification?

By completing our Instructional Design Courses Certfication Program, you’ll be awarded an Instructional Design Certificate. This certificate validates you have successfully completed our course in instructional design, and have proven your ability to design and develop a learning program.

We offer one of the best instructional design certificate programs online and face to face in Australia. To achieve our Instructional Design Certificate, learners must submit various materials, including a Learning Needs Analysis (LNA), High Level Design (HLD), and learning materials.

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What tools do Instructional Designers use?

Instructional Designers use a range of tools, including models, frameworks and software. Some of the most common tools are listed below.

Models and Frameworks

  1. The ADDIE Model
  2. Kirkpatrick’s Model of Evaluation (later adapted by Jack and Patti Phillips)
  3. VAK/VARK model (Walter Burke Barbe/Neil Fleming)
  4. Merrill’s Instructional Design Principles
  5. Bloom’s Taxonomy
  6. Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction
  7. The SAM Model
  8. Backwards Design
  9. Knowles’s Adult Learning Principles
  10. Dick & Carey

Software

  • Microsoft Office, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel
  • Authoring tools, such as Articulate 360’s Rise or Storyline
  • Learning Management Systems (LMS), such as TalentLMS
  • Video software, such as Doodly, Toonly or Voomly
  • Graphic design software
  • File-sharing platforms, such as Dropbox, Google Docs or Sharepoint
  • Virtual conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, Skype or Microsoft Teams

Is an Instructional Designer a good career?

An Instructional Designer is a good career if you like:

  • Flexible work hours
  • Working from home
  • Learning about various industries and roles
  • Project work
  • To develop a broad range of skills for various specialised areas
  • The ability to specialise in a particular are (e.g. accredited training, leadership, eLearning)
  • To be creative when designing content and instruction to facilitate learning
  • To design content but prefer not to facilitate it (although the option is usually there!)

Teachers often transition quite smoothly into instructional design. This is because many of the skills and knowledge developed in their bachelor’s degree and through their teaching experience transfer to adult learning. Whilst pedagogical practices may differ from andragogical strategies, the principles of learning remain the same. They will, however, need to develop an understanding of instructional design principles and models such as the ADDIE model.

What are some instructional design models?

There are a broad range of model and frameworks Instructional Designers draw on to design and develop effective learning experiences. We have summarised our top four.

  1. The ADDIE Model
  2. Kirkpatrick’s Model of Evaluation (later adapted by Jack and Patti Phillips)
  3. VAK Model
  4. Merrill’s Instructional Design Principles

The ADDIE Model

What once started as a military project in the 1970’s, the ADDIE Model has become one of the most popular instructional design models used today. [1]

The acronym describes an effective process for creating learning solutions: Analyse, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate.

Kirkpatrick’s Model of Evaluation

The Kirkpatrick Model is used to evaluate training.

It consists of four levels:

  1. Reaction: Did the participants find the training engaging and relevant?
  2. Learning: Did participants develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes outlined in the learning outcomes?
  3. Behaviour: Have participants transferred their learning to the workplace?
  4. Results: Has the training impacted the organisation in a positive way? (E.g. increased productivity, high quality of work, less accidents.)[2]

Later, Jack and Patti Phillips created a fifth level of evaluation:

  1. Return On Investment (ROI): How does the cost of the program compare to the monetary value of the program to the organisation?[3]

Adapted from “Evaluating Training Programs” by D. Kirkpatrick, 1994, San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.[2] & “The Value of Learning: How Organisations Capture Value and ROI” by P. Phillips & J. Phillips, 2007, Pfeiffer. .[3]

Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic (VAK) Model

The VAK Learning Model proposes that there are three learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

Merrill's Instructional Design Principles

Based on a wide range of learning theories, M. David Merrill established five common principles which he named the First Principles of Instruction.

Merrill proposed that learning occurs when:

  1. Learners are engaged in solving real-world
  2. Existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge.
  3. New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner.
  4. New knowledge is applied by the learner.
  5. New knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world.[4]

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